Probing Question

Probing Question

"Sometimes it seems like children remember things adults do not, but in fact, adults have better memory if by better memory we mean the ability to remember more information, more accurately, and for longer periods of time.

While the vast majority of the world's genetic researchers focus on the five to ten percent of the human genome that is actually a blueprint for a useful molecule, Wojciech Makalowski is studying the "junk." In particular, Makalowski, associate professor of biology and head of the Computational Evolutionary Genomics Lab at Penn State, studies DNA sequences called transposons, which make up more than a third of all the "non-coding" DNA in every cell of our bodies.

Those who have spent a winter in State College might have trouble buying into this whole global warming thing. Climate scientists at Penn State, however, maintain that even frigid central-Pennsylvania winters will be influenced by predicted increases in the so-called greenhouse effect. Using global and regional-scale climate models, these scientists are trying to pinpoint the regional effects of this global phenomenon.